Treasures (48 page)

He understood. For the first time in his life he thought he would go mad. He understood, too, that it was in every man at some time or other, to kill. These were not stale words; it was perfectly possible to kill. If the owner of these pajamas were within reach, he would do it. He knew he would. Afterward he was to consider
the fact that it was the man, and not Pam, whom he would have attacked. Was it because he knew her, while the other was an unknown? A statistic?

He ripped the pajamas off the hook. They were expensive silk pajamas that very likely the man had not even worn, for Pam slept naked.… Her nightgowns were only for show, for five minutes’ worth of wearing. Eddy’s rage shook him. His hands became so strong that he tore the trousers from waist to ankle with one stroke. Then he tore the top, leaving a heap on the floor in the center of the room. After that he sank down on the chair and covered his face with his hands.

His thoughts were fragmented: Connie, coming home and finding Richard. It was a queer enough possible parallel to this.…

And he remembered the men at the tennis courts and the riding school, long ago. Who knew the truth about them?

He was still sitting there when he heard Pam calling from the downstairs hall.

“Where are you? I’ve got soup and a smoked salmon sandwich.”

Smoked salmon. A delicacy intended for the evening’s party, which his arrival had spoiled. No doubt the owner of the pajamas would have been at the party. Perhaps the party had even been planned for him.

“Eddy? Where are you?”

He did not answer. Then he heard her come up the stairs in search of him. And still he did not move. What would he say to her? What would she say to him? Would she lie? Of course she would, as anybody would.

Her glance from shocked, wide-open eyes took in the closet, the bureau drawers, and the rags on the floor. Then it came to rest on Eddy, who looked back in silence.

So lovely, she was! So fastidious in white with those long legs and the long hair and that pure, patrician face. His patrician lady, now no longer altogether his. The diamond wedding band glittered on her finger; he saw an instant picture of her hand, wearing his ring, doing intimate unmentionable things upon that other man’s body. And a surge of nausea made him tremble.

“Oh,” she said very softly. “Oh. But you’ve misunderstood! Sometimes I have a guest who stays overnight, that’s all! He likes to ride on these trails. We have some marvelous trails. I’ll show you.… He lives in town, so he leaves his riding clothes here.”

“And his suits and his underwear and a stack of shirts? Enough for a year’s use?”

She said nothing.

“I see that at least you have enough decency to blush.”

She began to cry. “You don’t believe me. I know how this might look to someone who didn’t know me—”

“But that’s just it, Pam. I do know you.”

“Whatever can you mean by that?”

Thick, shining tears slid down her cheeks unheeded and fell on her clothes.

“Ah, Pam, Pam, be truthful with me now! At least you can do that much for me.” And he tried to meet her eyes, but she turned away to stare down at her fingernails.

Presently, in a harsh whisper, she spoke. “He’s nobody. I mean
nobody
to me. He’s nothing. He was nice to me when I came here, not knowing a soul. It was so lonely. You can’t imagine how it was. It’s one thing for a bright young couple to arrive together in a new place and start fresh. But for a woman to come alone without a husband—”

“Or a husband in jail.”

She did not answer.

“Tell me, Pam, is he good in bed? How does he compare with me?”

She had been standing, and now she flung herself on the bed, flung herself so hard that the bedframe creaked, and then lay there with her face hidden in the bolster.

He walked to the window. The grass on this winter afternoon was still bright, but he was only half seeing it, was only barely conscious of this pastoral sweetness. His thoughts were the old ones, old thoughts of early days, riding on the beach, dancing among Pam’s golden, lucky crowd and going home to make love at dawn. Highs, tremendous highs …

Then he whirled around. “He lived here with you, didn’t he?”

“He comes and stays a few days at a time. He never
lived
here.”

“What’s the difference?”

“There was never any commitment. This is your house. He always knew you were coming back.”

Numb now, Eddy turned back to stare at the grass, where a flock of strutting crows searched for seeds. After
a while the bed creaked again as Pam turned. Lying on her side with her cheek resting on her arms, she began to address the wall.

“I didn’t plan for it. It just happened. And not as often as it may seem either. I was always sorry every time. But I told you—I was so alone. And he was kind to me.”

“Yes. I imagine he would be.”

“I don’t love him, Eddy. I never did, not for one minute. It wasn’t love.”

“If you did, there would be more of an excuse. This way it’s worse.”

“Why worse? Can’t you see that this was only—”

He heard himself sneer. “Only what? Fun?”

“Well, yes. You could say that. Yes, fun. Sex. Eddy … two years are a long time.”

“I’m rather aware of that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Sorry! It was stupid of me, cruel of me! Please, Eddy, I wasn’t thinking when I said it. And I’m so ashamed. Ashamed of it all.” Now with piteous eyes she looked fully at him. “It’s so rotten. It’s unspeakable. I’ve been thinking for weeks, for months, and you must have, too, how the minute you got here, we would just lock the door and— Now, now it’s all spoiled. Oh, my God, it’s all spoiled!”

Our twisted lives. How is it possible for everything to go wrong? he asked himself. Everything.

Pam sat up and held out her arms to him. “But I won’t let it be spoiled! I won’t let it, Eddy! Come. Come here. Please. Will you? Can you? Please.”

He felt himself flinch. “I can’t,” he said very low. It
was an effort to speak; even his voice was exhausted. “I’m only thinking that if I hadn’t found this out, you’d have let me live the rest of my life here not knowing that another man had been with you in this house. A man whom in my ignorance I would undoubtedly meet and sit with at somebody’s table, with everybody knowing except me. That’s what you would have done to me, isn’t it?”

She flung herself back into the pillows, facedown. “Why must you do this, Eddy? I can’t bear it. I can’t. You hate me! I see it in your eyes.”

He shook his head. “No. A minute ago, I did. But that’s gone.” So quickly had the rage, the outrage, drained away. “I’m only so damn sorry for us both, that’s all. Do you remember when we were in the kitchen at your mother’s house and I asked you about other men and you said—”

“You’re not really going to rake that up, are you?”

“You said something about how long and lonesome the week was when I stayed in the city and we didn’t see each other. You missed being ‘admired,’ I think you said. You didn’t mean admiration, though. You meant sex.”

And now it was Pam in whom rage fired. She sprang up and stood before him shaking with it, her fists clenched, her eyes furious.

“Who are you to rummage around with your ancient suspicions? Is your past so lily-white? Is it? There’s enough I could say, God knows!”

For a minute or two he stood and looked at her trembling shoulders. He could think of no answer. There was
none. So, carefully, he closed the door behind him and went downstairs. He had no idea where he was going.

A servant was clearing the table in the dining room. The woman looked up and he nodded but passed her. There was no need to get acquainted. And he walked on. The house was very large with many rooms and long passageways. Wall after wall displayed his treasured paintings, and precious sculpture stood in lighted niches. Beautiful, they were, each one a marvel; none had lost the power with which it had first moved his heart. And yet he wondered however he could have cared that much to possess them. He stood there, staring about him, feeling empty. The zest of ownership had gone. It would be enough to see these things in a museum.

After a while he went out onto the veranda. The sun had moved far to the west, leaving a last spot of light and warmth where a group of chairs stood at the end. He sat down. His spirit was numbed and dulled. All through this momentous day, he reflected, his moods had been veering, as if he were on a sailboat tacking in an erratic wind, answerable only to the wind. And he sat still, waiting for what, he did not know.

Presently, after an hour or more had passed, he heard the door open. Pam came out and sat down. Her eyes were swollen and her voice was thick.

“What now, Eddy?” she asked quietly.

With equal quietness he answered, “I guess you’ll want a divorce.”

“Why? Do you really think that’s what
I
want?”

“I don’t know. I know I can’t stay here, so I suppose you will want one.”

“You do hate me, Eddy, don’t you? The truth.”

There was such a heaviness in his chest that he could hardly breathe.

“No,” he said. “No. I don’t hate anyone. I told you.”

She was in a rocking chair, and now, perhaps unconsciously, she began to rock. Back and forth the chair went, rumbling over the wooden floor.

“Oh!” she cried. “Who could have thought it would end like this? It was such fun in the beginning. Didn’t we have a lot of fun together?”

“Yes. Yes, we did.”

Faster and faster, the rockers went. Eddy put his hand on the arm of the chair to stop it.

“You’ll rock yourself off the edge of the porch,” he said gently.

“What will you do, since you said you can’t stay here?”

“I guess I’ll go back to Ohio. There was a fellow in—in that place whose brother-in-law has a large firm of accountants in Columbus. They offered me a job. I turned it down, but now I’ll take it. I’ll take them up on the offer.”

“You’d like that?”

He shrugged. “I always loved numbers. I’ve been pretty good at numbers, all considered.” And he managed a wry smile.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand as a child might do. The gesture was curiously touching.

“I’d have a steady salary,” he said, thinking aloud.
“I’ll get an apartment, have a budget, and live within the salary. No worries. It’ll feel good.”

A silence, sorrowful and heavy, fell between them. After a while Pam broke it softly.

“You’ll be needing things for the apartment.”

“Not many.”

“There’s plenty of stuff here. The attic’s full. Even though I sold five million dollars’ worth, there’s enough left for another big sale.”

“Sell it, then. Get the cash.”

“I’m hardly in need of cash, am I?”

“Hardly.”

And now an idea struck Eddy, an illumination, as if a light that had been flickering uncertainly had flared into a brilliance. “I was thinking, with all that money tied up and doing nothing, if it were sold, then some of the people I took from could be paid back.”

“You don’t have to do that. You’ve been discharged in bankruptcy. You’re cleared.”

“I know that, but I don’t feel cleared.”

“I don’t see why not.”

He saw, but there was no need to tell her what he saw, or how Richard and some special others haunted him yet. So he said simply that he had had much time to think and that it was the right thing to do.

“Perhaps so, for a saint or an angel. How many people do you know who’d do it?”

“Not many, it’s true. But still, I thought you might agree. You were never attached to things as I was.”

“That’s true, too, but I’m attached enough not to give them away.”

He was too tired to argue further. Anyway, he had no power over her possessions.

“That doesn’t apply to you, though. I want you to look through everything and take whatever you like, Eddy.” There was a glisten of tears in her eyes, and he had to look away again.

“I can tell you right now. I’d like my desk. The little one that stood in my den. And that’s all.”

“All? That’s ridiculous,” she said, very gently.

“No, it’s all I want,” he insisted, thinking. “I need to be free and clean. I need to divest myself of all the reminders.”

“What about paintings? You could take some to sell, and then
you
sock away the cash.”

“I’ll have no use or space for treasures in the kind of little place I’ll have, and I don’t want the cash.”

“You can find room for some good pictures. Take them!” She was almost pleading. He understood how sorry she was for him, for everything. “They’re yours. You bought them. Remember?” And she gave again that small, sad smile. “You’re the one who earned them.”

“Let’s say, rather, that I acquired them. That’s more accurate,” he said bitterly, wanting to hurt himself, wanting to reach the last threshold of pain.

“All the same, I insist. Select some art. You loved it so much.”

If anyone could know how he had loved it, Pam could. She knew everything about him.… And he thought for a moment. “All right. I will take one. The small Renoir with the woman who looks like my mother.”

Peg, who always saw the bright side. What would she have to say about all this?

“I don’t understand why you’re refusing to take more.”

“I don’t know that I can explain it, Pam, so you’ll have to believe my word. Please.”

“Isn’t there anything I can give you? Anything at all that I can do?” she asked in a rising, wavering little voice.

He thought again, considering the weight of what he was about to suggest.

“Yes. Yes, there is something. I was thinking about Davey and Lara. You’ve kept in touch, so you know as well I do what’s going on. Would you be willing to lend them enough to buy back all the stock? Or you could buy it yourself and then release it to him, so he can beat those people who want to take him over? I don’t know exactly how much is needed. It’s a big sum, but not more than you can afford, I’m sure. And you know Davey. He’ll pay you back ahead of time. Do you think you can do it?”

“I’ll think about it. I’ve always loved Lara. You know that.”

“It would mean so much. They’ve struggled so and gotten so far. I’d hate to see them lose out.”